


Minbari War Syndrome

by LondonKdS



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Major Character Injury, Mind Control, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-04
Updated: 2005-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LondonKdS/pseuds/LondonKdS
Summary: If John Sheridan didn't have main-character insurance.
Kudos: 2





	Minbari War Syndrome

"Your information is a little out of date", Commander Takahashi said with regret. "That platform in Sector 22C4 is now fitted with triple three-terawatt lasers with three-sixty degree firing range in all three dimensions." His voice cracked a little. "Excuse me, please". He took the carafe of water in front of him and began to pour the liquid gently into his glass. The soft trickling noise drilled down through Sheridan's mind like... _the trickle of the oleum dripping from the bottle in his father's hand onto his clipped-open eye, the indescribable flaming pain and the sizzle of the reaction as it burned its way through the cornea and the feeling of leaking as the aqueous humour slightly diluted the burning fluid but there was oh so little of it, not nearly the infinite ocean required to dilute the hellbroth as it ate its way down through the vitreous humour and then he saw the blinding flash like a nuclear blast as his optic nerve burned out and then the pain dulled enough to for him to hear the strange sighing noise as he tried to scream through overstretched and ruined vocal cords._

_"All you need to do to stop this is just go out there and talk to the people. Just a little thing like that." his father patiently explained as he turned the current on again and twisted the copper sound in his urethra. "Only thing you can do to stop this. Can't faint or die," he grinned, and he waved his hand and the damage healed again ready to be done for... how many times had it been?_

Delenn felt Sheridan's hand spasm into rigidity as she gripped it beneath the table. She sent a warning thought to Lyta knowing that she would already have picked up what was happening, as she sat on Sheridan's other side gripping his left hand for so different a reason. Lyta looked down to the tablet in front of her, trusting in her lowered lashes and the officers' uncomfortable, deliberate incuriosity to hide the glossy blackness of her sclerae. _Reinforce Takahashi's group with the Dionysos and two White Stars from reserve,_ Delenn thought.

"Fine", Sheridan announced. "We'll back you up with the _Dionysos_ and two of the reserve _White Stars._ Don't worry," he declared ringingly, "We've got enough to whip them now with more left over."

 _Damn you Lyta,_ Delenn thought not quite to herself as she exchanged business-like looks with Takahashi. _Damn this cruel competence,_ for Lyta had shaken Delenn with the perfection with which she had simulated Sheridan's brief moment of thought and open smile of renewed confidence. She wondered if there would be anything of him left when all of this was over. But she knew how fickle humans could be, how easily discouraged from a cause, and they needed to believe that their leader had faced the worst that PsiCorp's nightmare-makers could do and come out whole, sane and unbowed, especially with Commander Ivanova so terribly injured and nowhere near recovery. She wondered if the propagandists on Earth would be amused or angered if they knew the truth. Months ago, they had accused her of using a broken John as her puppet to destroy the humans' regime. Now that was entirely true. But she was most certainly not the one who had broken him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written after one too many encounters with people who thought that "Intersections In Real Time" was an unprecedentedly brutal depiction of the issue of torture.


End file.
